Rapping With Chuck D

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Q: So this third tier you refer to is a more open tier?
Chuck D: A more open tier that doesn't exclude artists from getting to the top tier. It just gives the artists a better vision of what they're dealing with instead of being the gullible artist that doesn't know [expletive] and relies on the major industry to let them know about [expletive]. So now you have the artist situation who are putting together their own teams, who are down with whatever the Internet has to offer. They know how to navigate through some of the areas that might be problematic for the major situations who think everything is problematic except for the process they invented or the process that they've dominated over. The bottom line is that the major industries can't host a million artists and a million labels. There's not enough room for them. It's not feasible. With the Internet it's possible. Digital distribution is now looking at being a parallel-sized industry to the offline industry, and the offline industry which is run by lawyers and accountants, of course they're going to view it as being a parasitic industry. In a way it is. But then so did the train industry when they looked at airplanes coming out; they tried to fight tooth and nail to keep them out.

Q: Who would take up the mantle of the good things record companies do? Like finding the better artists out there?
Chuck D: I thought art was subjective. What do you mean by better? You can't tell me that Britney Spears is better than every 17-year-old girl singing out there. It's just that she's marketed and promoted and financed. Before financing an artist might have cost $600,000 [or] $700,000 now it costs $10 million. So these corporations have found a way. It's not even art any more.

Q: What about the independent film analogy? The Independent Feature Film Market that is held annually here in New York has become so overcrowded, largely due to the success of indie films and the advent of digital filmmaking, that it's difficult to find your way through some terrible films people are making.
Chuck D: But what might be a good film to you might be a terrible film to me.

Q: So you think the broadest landscape of artists is best?
Chuck D: I think the cream rises to the top as opposed to being selected. I don't think record labels have ever done a great selecting process. Whoever went ooh, ooh, ooh, or raised their hand the highest and kept raising their hand, you know, eventually became signed. And you had this guy that divvied out the selection process like he was some kind of king. Oh, you are the one that's chosen. That's ridiculous. Now technology has afforded a lot of people to make music, so you'll see talent come from all kinds of areas. So yeah in the Internet realm, yeah, you'll see a lot of artists and a lot of labels. And independents you'll see the majors and the independents swoop into that marketplace to see who will be able to go up to that next level.

Now's the time that the Internet will allow you to do your own solo albums without it being of great cost to you or somebody of an independent label having to finance you. You can actually get that first step on your own as opposed to waiting for somebody to call you for a session.

Q: How has file-sharing helped with your own music?
Chuck D: It's a form to be a new radio. Definitely exposure. People will go up and look at Public Enemy and see a lot of songs and by them taking a lot of songs then they'll go to the store and being exposed to a lot of different things. Might have seen an album but not heard it. It's just led them into saying I didn't know this [expletive] was on the album. I kind of dig it. And they would go get the hard copy anyway. So for me, it's new radio. Make your own radio station.

Q: Does at any point that sharing ever cross the line of copyright infringement?
Chuck D: I think the copyright laws that were created in the last century, they're definitely going to have to go through a revision period. And what applied last century doesn't apply in this century. No. But I think copyright will be reformed to mean a whole other thing. I think the Internet might be more like a situation where BMI or ASCAP increases the performance situation and almost ignores the mechanical.

Q: So does that mean live performance will become a larger revenue stream for the artists?
Chuck D: I'm also talking about performance fee, whether it be a penny or whatever, through the process of file-sharing. That might come into the equation, where, for example, when you sing with BMI, your record gets played on the radio, you have a performance royalty coming your way, as little as it might be, but it's something. The areas of exposure for music right now in the traditional realm are either financially controlled by corporations which keep the start-up entrepreneurs out and the new artists out. There's just no room. And so a new equation has to come out as with any technology. It comes in because there's a need for it. If there wasn't a need for it, we wouldn't be talking about it. If it didn't have the attitude and the excitement of the public, it would be a moot point. The genie's out of the bottle and the bottle is crushed to a thousand pieces.

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